The new Petunia cultivar is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the inventor, Wim van Marrewijk, in the Netherlands. The objective of the breeding program was to produce drought tolerant varieties of Petunia for commercial introduction. The seed parent is an unpatented, unnamed, proprietary seedling of Petunia integrifolia spp. inflata. The pollen parent is an unpatented, unnamed proprietary seedling of Petunia thymifolia. The crossing was performed during May 2001.
In April 2002, the new variety was discovered and selected by the inventor in a group of seedlings resulting from that crossing, in a commercial greenhouse in the Netherlands. Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar ‘PETPRE01’ by vegetative cuttings was first performed at a commercial greenhouse in the Netherlands in April 2002. Subsequent asexual propagation has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type on successive generations.